


Defining A Relationship

by scifigeek14



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, brief mentions of klaine, kurtbastian, not a blaine bashing fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigeek14/pseuds/scifigeek14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of quick glimpses into the interactions between Kurt and Sebastian that lead up to and then continue through their relationship. Some will be in Kurt's POV and some in Seb's. I'm sure you can figure it out. </p><p>The words and definitions I have stated and have been inspired by are all from Inspired by words from www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. la gaudière

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by words from ww.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com
> 
> The words and their definitions used for each chapter are from there. I do not own them. Or Glee. Please don't sue me! :)

1.

la gaudière:

n. the glint of goodness inside people, which you can only find by sloshing them back and forth in your mind until everything dark and gray and common falls away, leaving behind a constellation at the bottom of the pan—a rare element trapped in exposed bedrock, washed there by a storm somewhere upstream.     

                     

* * *

 

 

I’d gone back to Dalton at the request of Jeff who, along with Trent and Nick, wanted to repair our friendship that had gotten damaged in the Sebastian versus New Directions debacle. It meant a lot to me that they were doing that. Blaine had wanted to come but had been forced to stay late to make up a test he’d missed when he was out due to his eye injury.

I was walking out to my car, glad to escape the sea of blazers and promising myself that the next meet up would have to be at my place, when I heard the tell-tale choking sound of someone trying to silence their crying. I knew this sound from when I used to hide in the empty stalls between lunch my freshmen year. I only ever cried once, the guys in the stalls next to me were not always as brave and stubborn as I.

Curiosity caused me to follow the sound and the scene I found was startling. Sitting on the ground near the wheel of a Cadillac was a young boy, perhaps a freshmen. He was sobbing as quietly as he could, his face in his hands. Crouched in front of him, with a hand on his arm, was Sebastian Smythe.

I immediately ducked behind a truck.

“Hey, it’s okay.” I heard Sebastian’s attempt to calm the boy. He was speaking softly, so softly I had to strain to hear him.

“My- my parents are g-going to kill me.”  The boy sobbed.

“No they aren’t.”

“I’ve never gotten a C – a C m-minus before on an-anything.”

“Dalton is tough work. It is a hard transition for a lot people. One low grade isn’t the end of the world. You’ll get into the swing of things.”  

This was a side of Sebastian I didn’t know existed. I didn’t know he could be comforting or caring without there being something in it for him. He usually had an agenda. But if he had one now, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.

“Go and talk to the professor about how you can make up your grade and if you are still struggling, Dalton has tutors.” The boy sniffled.

“Th- thanks, Sebastian.”

“No problem, kid. It’s my first year here too.  Us newbies gotta stick together. From here on out, I got your back.”

“Really?”

“Sure thing. Come on. I’ll give you a ride home since you’ve probably missed the bus by now.”

I listened to the shuffle of them standing and getting into the Cadillac. I waited until I heard its engines fade until I poked my head back around the truck and wandered over towards were I had parked.  The entire drive home I spent attempting to wrap my head around what I had just witnessed. 


	2. fata organa

2.

fata organa:

n. a flash of real emotion glimpsed in someone sitting across the room, idly locked in the middle of some group conversation, their eyes glinting with vulnerability or quiet anticipation or cosmic boredom—as if you could see backstage through a gap in the curtains, watching stagehands holding their ropes at the ready, actors in costume mouthing their lines, fragments of bizarre sets waiting for some other production.

 

* * *

 

It went down in Lima as the great Show Choir Drug Scandal. I wasn’t there when it all went down but I had been kept in the loop. I hadn’t really thought about the repercussions though. Not until I found myself sitting back in the Lima Bean on a long weekend trying to avoid being seen by the group of Warblers that was crowding the back of the Bean.

They appeared to be arguing animatedly. Unfortunately for their privacy the Bean was too quiet to drown it out.

“Do you think this will affect my permanent record?”

“They can’t revoke my application for this right? I mean I’m already in.”

“Just be glad that we didn’t get sent to juvie.”

“Can we sue the school for negligence? I mean we were technically being blackmailed, right?”

It was a mess. They were all talking over each other and arms were a flurry of gesticulation. Someone knocked over a cup of coffee but it went mostly ignored, soaked up with some of those tri-fold brown recycled napkins and left in a pile.

I knew he was there, Sebastian. He hadn’t spoken though. He had remained quiet through all of it, squeezing his fingers around the coffee cup in his hands, jaw set.  Then I heard my answer.

“I mean, Sebastian already got put on academic probation at NYU before he even finished high school.”

“Not to mention grounded for the rest of his life!”

“Dude! Be sensitive!”

I looked up and found myself staring into green eyes. He’d looked over at me at the same moment I had looked up and we accidently made eye contact. His eyes widened in shock almost immediately and he looked away but not before I saw a flicker of something that I hadn’t seen since he’d called Blaine, Santana, Brittany, and I to the bean to apologize. It was regret, sadness, demise. It was heartbreak. And it reminded me that he was human, like the time I’d caught him helping a freshmen or that pained look he’d given after hurting Blaine.

I swallowed the rest of my coffee and left quickly, feeling like I was intruding just a little too much. 


	3. opia

3.

opia

n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out

 

* * *

 

“Thanks Asshole!” I exclaimed as all my sketch copies went fluttering to the ground after the body bumped into me near the exit of the subway. I heard a laugh and saw hands enter my peripheral vision as I struggled to gather them up. The hands gathered some of them and held them out to me.

“No need to call names, Kurt.” My head shot up and I gasped.

“Sebastian?”

He didn’t answer. He just stared at me. It was like he was staring into my soul. I wondered if I was blushing. I hadn’t seen him in months. Not since Blaine’s elaborate proposal at Dalton where he’d sung along with the others, smiling but rolling his eyes at the mushy romance.

“How- how are you?” I asked after a few seconds of staring at each other. He nodded congenially.

“I’m sorry I bumped into you.” He sounded so polite. He wasn’t smirking or anything.

“Sorry I called you an Asshole.”

“I figure I’m probably due.” There was the smirk I knew. I rolled my eyes, breaking our steady eye contact.

“Probably. Um, I should go. I have to get to work.” He nodded and stepped to the side. I nodded and started to walk but he grabbed my elbow. I looked back over my shoulder and once again we made eye contact. His stupid green eyes were staring at me so intensely.

“Don’t be a stranger, Kurt.”  


	4. keyframe

4.

keyframe

n. a moment that seemed innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life—set in motion not by a series of jolting epiphanies but by tiny imperceptible differences between one ordinary day and the next, until entire years of your memory can be compressed into a handful of indelible images—which prevents you from rewinding the past, but allows you to move forward without endless buffering.

* * *

Why I decided to go out of my way to do this was beyond me. Maybe it was because he looked so pitiful sitting there alone in a café with an empty cup of coffee, maybe it was the way he was rolling the ring between his fingers, or the unshed tears shimmering in his blue-gray eyes. We weren't friends. Not really. We'd only seen each other a handful of times since I'd moved to New York. He'd invited me to his wedding that won't come to fruition now.

"Here." I said quietly, placing a fresh cup of coffee in front of him. He looked up startled and quickly rubbed at his eyes.

"Hi-" He paused to clear his throat a bit, "Hi Sebastian."

"Mind if I sit?" I asked nodding to the empty café across from him.

"You bought me coffee. Of course you can sit down." He smiled a slightly and I sat, sipping my own coffee.

"I'm getting Lima flashbacks" I commented lightly.

"Missing Bl-Blaine though." He choked out. There was a pause were we both looked at the ring in between his fingers.

"Are you okay?"

"I take it you heard?"

"Dalton Grapevine is still in effect even post grad." He let out a dry chuckle.

"It's still fresh. Only a few days. It will get- it will get better with time. Right?" His hands were shaking. "It has to, right?" Without thinking I reached out and covered his hands with mine.

"It will. Time heals all wounds or something. That, and booze." He snorted.

"Thanks Sebastian." I squeezed his fingers and let go, choosing to sip my coffee. He did the same.

We spent the rest of our coffee and then a shared cookie talking about our lives since high school. We avoided all Blaine talk, obviously. Then I walked him all the way back to his apartment.

"This is me." He said when we got there. I nodded.

"Stay in touch, Hummel. Okay?"

"Yeah. Facebook me and we'll do coffee again sometime."

"Sounds good. See you." I started to walk away.

"Sebastian. Wait a sec." I turned back around. He was looking down at the ring in his hand.

"What's up?"

"Take this with you." He took my hand and pressed the ring into the palm of it.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Get rid of it for me. Sell it or something. It's done. I am ready to move on."


	5. rollover reaction

5.

rollover reaction

n. when your dream about someone you know skews how you feel about them all the next day, an emotion you are unable—and unwilling—to shake.

 

* * *

 

Kurt and I had been what one would call friends for a little under four days when I had my first sex dream about him.

Well, I say sex dream but it wasn’t really. We were naked and in a bed like we had just had sex or like we were going to but we were just lying there. He was on top of me but I couldn’t feel his body touching mine. I just felt warmth all around me. He was enveloping me. He was backlit too, like a glowing halo of light. He was all I could see. He literally filled up my senses, like that dumb song by John Denver.

He looked beautiful, like an angel.

He smiled at me and I felt my breath catch.

“Sebastian.” He whispered and it echoed through me.

The next day I couldn’t get his voice out of my head. The way he said my name. It’d shaken me. It had changed something in me.

“Sebastian?” He’d asked me, snapping his fingers in front of my face. I found myself jarred out of the memory of the dream to the real Kurt sitting before me. His eyebrows were crumpled in worry.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“Daydreaming, Sebastian?” He asked with a teasing smile. I found myself overlaying his smile from my dream with the one I saw now and reaching for his hand. He cocked his head to the side in curiosity at the movement.

“Go back to what you were saying. I’m listening now.”


	6. hanker sore

6.

hanker sore

adj. finding a person so attractive it actually kinda pisses you off.

 

* * *

 

Sebastian Smythe was a really attractive man. We’d been hanging out roughly twice a week for at least three months now and I would have to be blind to not see just how attractive he actually was.

It was just his physical attributes either. That isn’t to say that he wasn’t physically handsome though. He was. He more than was. He’d only gotten more attractive as he he’d gotten older. He’d gotten tanner, but not dark, causing a smattering of very light freckles to show on his nose. I wondered if he had any on his shoulders. If we were still friends when it warmed up perhaps I’d get to see him in a sleeveless shirt and find out. Or even better, shirtless. He obviously had wide shoulders and I knew that he’d played lacrosse in high school, which meant that he was bound to be built. I’d gotten glimpses of it when he wore a tight sweater or t-shirt. Sometimes he’d offer me an elbow when he walked me back to my apartment and I’d pretend I wasn’t feeling up his bicep.

But moving on past his body, his face was a picture. His sharp jawline and high cheekbones gave him an aristocratic look. His hair was longer now and would sometimes fall in front of his eyes. Then he’d brush it back causing me to stare at his beautiful green-gray eyes and I’d have to look away before he noticed me staring.

It was frustrating.

I knew that I wasn’t emotionally ready to even think about a new relationship, even a casual one. So why did he have to be so god damn gorgeous as to make me have a stupid crush on him? It wasn’t fair.

My heart couldn’t handle the way that he smiled at me instead of smirking like he used too. Or the way that he’d lace our fingers across the table when we’d finished our coffee. The way he laughed with his whole body shaking, his head thrown back in abandon. The way that he bit his lower lip when he was doing homework or studying before he knew that’d I had showed up. Sometimes he’d lean his chin on his hand and listen to me talk. I’d talk about my day, my work, school, fashion, TV couples, or some magazine spread that he didn’t care about, but he’d lean forward like that, like nothing else mattered, and sometimes I could believe that he was waiting on my every breath.

What gave Sebastian Smythe the right to stroll back into my life and screw with my emotions like this? He shouldn’t be allowed to be so perfect.

I wanted to slap him and then kiss the sting off of his mouth.


	7. aimonomia

7.

aimonomia

n. fear that learning the name of something—a bird, a constellation, an attractive stranger—will somehow ruin it, transforming a lucky discovery into a conceptual husk pinned in a glass case, which leaves one less mystery to flutter around your head, trying to get in.

* * *

 

We’d been doing this for almost two months now. It started one night when we had been cuddled up on his couch in his single apartment watching Singing in the Rain. The popcorn was gone and the movie was just ending and he put a finger under my chin to lift my face to his and then he kissed me.

Kissing has been a thing for us ever since. We never talked about it. It was just something that we did now. He’d kiss me on the cheek when he greeted me and on the mouth when he said goodnight, the kind of deep and lingering kiss that made me drop my eyelids closed and hum in happiness.

Sometimes we’d make out on the couch, or the window seat, or even on the bed a couple of times. It was always slow and languid, wet, warm lips and tongues, fingers tracing paths across faces and burying themselves in hair, ankles tangled.

We weren’t dating though. How we felt about each other hadn’t really changed because of it. At least, how I felt hadn’t. I wanted to ask him sometimes. I wanted to break a kiss, like the one I was locked in now, and just ask “What are we, Sebastian?” But I was scared.

I was scared that he would dismiss it.  So I didn’t. I let him kiss me until I had to go home. I didn’t want to ruin it. I liked it too much. I liked being “Kurt and Sebastian who are friends and sometimes make out”. Maybe that was enough for me. 


	8. chrysalism

chrysalism

n. the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm, listening to waves of rain pattering against the roof like an argument upstairs, whose muffled words are unintelligible but whose crackling release of built-up tension you understand perfectly.

* * *

 

“Aren’t you glad that you moved in with me before spring hit?” He asked in a reverent whisper as we lay wrapped in a blanket on the window seat, his voice a warm puff of air against my ear.

Outside a thunderstorm ravaged the city.  It wasn’t unlike the way in which we had just ravaged each other. It was powerful and felt a little bit out of control, but it was beautiful and it was warm. It stripped everything bare and left in its wake a kind of quiet that was as rare as it was peaceful.

“Why?” I asked just as softly. “So we wouldn’t have to move my stuff in the rain?” He kissed my bare shoulder in response to my teasing.

“Because it means we can spend all day and all night sitting here, your favorite spot in our apartment, and watch the storm.”

“Post-coital storm watching is my favorite.” I admitted with a small grin. This caused a chuckle to vibrate from him.

“I know it is.” I felt his teeth scrap over the skin at the nape of my neck and it made me shiver. “You cold?”

“No.” I shook my head and pulled his arms around me tighter. Lightning flashed and I counted _…_ _1 … 2 ... 3…_ it was moving away now.

“You look beautiful.” He said as if commenting on the weather. The sky is gray, rain is wet, and Sebastian Smythe thinks Kurt Hummel is beautiful.

I stroked his wrist. He had a tattoo there. He’d gotten it two months ago and I’d gone with him.   _Every sinner has a future_ , it read in script handwriting. It was an Oscar Wild quote. I wondered what Sebastian dreamed about when he dreamed of his future. Was I in it? Or would time wash us away like the dirt of New York’s sidewalk in the rain.

“You are thinking awfully hard about something.” He observed with another kiss pressed to my skin. His toes brushed my ankle and his free hand rubbed my knee.

“Do you love me, Sebastian?” I asked. He didn’t even stutter in his ministrations. He just kissed me under my ear.

“More than anything or anyone else on this fucking planet. It’s you and me against the world, Kurtsie.”

I smiled as the rain let up and thought that maybe there was something to the expression A Perfect Storm.


	9. mimeomia

9.

mimeomia

n. the frustration of knowing how easily you fit into a stereotype, even if you never intended to, even if it’s unfair, even if everyone else feels the same way—each of us trick-or-treating for money and respect and attention, wearing a safe and predictable costume because we’re tired of answering the question, “What are you supposed to be?”

* * *

 

 

“Kurt?” I shouted worried into the bedroom. I had only just gotten home from class when I heard a crash and a shout of ‘fuck!’ come from in there.

“Don’t come in! You can’t come in!” Kurt called back sounding distressed. I recognized the sound of Kurt’s crying voice. I knew that sound. I ran into the room immediately.

The room was a mess.

Kurt was on his knees, wearing only boxers and one of my sweatshirts, with his head stuck in the entrance way of the closet. His clothes were strewn all over the room. His designer clothes were in crumpled piles, his cardigans were hanging off of the dresser and the standup mirror. Kurt was throwing knee-high boots over his shoulder. His shoulders were shaking and I could hear the sniffles and the choked sobs.

“Kurt?” I inquired again, softer this time.

“Go away, Seb. I don’t want you here right now.” He answered with a wretched sniffle, crawling out of the closet. “Please, just- just…” He trailed off, rubbing at his eyes. I walked over to him and knelt down next to him.

“Kurt, baby, what’s got you so upset?” I asked, stroking a hand down his back. He shivered. Then he turned around and launched himself into my arms. I grabbed him tightly and pulled him into my lap.

“I look like a girl!” He wailed into my chest.

“What?” I responded uselessly in utter confusion.

“I look like a girl. I’m not masculine at all and… why do you even like me? You’re gay, you like guys, and I don’t even look like one!”  He sobbed.

“What are you talking about?” I stroked his back in attempt to calm him down. “Who told you that you looked like a girl?”

“The last three casting directors I’ve auditioned for.” He mumbled. I pulled him away from my chest and wiped at his wet cheeks with the pads of my thumbs.

“Those assholes are why you are destroying your closet?” He nodded.

“The last one said I would never be a leading man because I- I dressed like a drag queen and looked like a porcelain doll. Do I look like a girl? Am I too stereotypical gay to even be a leading man? Will you be honest with me, Seb? You used to call me lady and gayface. Is that really me?”

I frowned and kissed him on the mouth. He sniffled but let me, eventually giving in and kissing me back. I kissed him until his breathing calmed down. Then I kissed each eyelid and each cheek and his nose and his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Kurt. I’m so sorry for all those nasty things I used to call you. You are not a girl. You are not a drag queen. You are not a stereotype. I’m sorry that I was ever I part of the group of stupid, ignorant assholes who played a part in making you think those things about you.

“You are so much more than a stereotype. You like horror movies almost as much as musicals, you have a tongue piercing that you put in once a week so the hole doesn’t close, your tattoo says Bette Midler, you can sing higher than anyone I have ever met and hit low notes just as easily, you love leather as much as you love chiffon, you can tell me why my car stopped working and then probably fix it for me, you can cook really healthy food and also enjoy fast food. You are not a fucking stereotype.”

“So … I shouldn’t throw out my entire wardrobe and get a tattoo of something like an anchor on my bicep?” He asked with a small, guilty laugh.

“Well, I wouldn’t be too upset about the nudity, but I might have to disown you if you get a cliché tattoo.” He snorted and rubbed at his eye.

“I don’t look like a girl?”

“You are all man, babe.” I promised him. “You’ve got broad shoulders, and big strong muscles, and a big thick cock.” 

“Seb!” He exclaimed, blushing bright red.

“What? It’s true.” He laughed and kissed my cheek.

“Thank you.”

“What for? I’m just stating the obvious facts, babe.” He shook his head.

“No. Thank you for loving me for who I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter for now.


End file.
